Chemical News
& Intelligence
April 12, 2004
3500 job
cuts 'good news' for China
Mike Sheridan
HOUSTON--Reducing DuPont's global workforce by 6% or 3500 workers
appears to be "really good news" for the people in China, a union leader told
CNI Monday.
Carl Goodman, president of the International Brotherhood of DuPont
Workers (IBDW), said that "it appears" the jobs cuts by DuPont in
the US and Europe will probably mean higher employment in China, a country where
DuPont's chief executive Charles Holliday has said the Wilmington,
Delaware-based company intends to grow.
Goodman added: "We're extremely upset about the loss of so many American jobs
in Holliday's effort to keep the stock price up. I think if Holliday would
resign, there might be an even bigger impact on the stock price."
Goodman is also president of Louisville, Kentucky-based Local 5-2002 of the
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union
(PACE).
Last year, Goodman charged that DuPont's plans to cut costs by $
900m (Euro750m) in two years "is the same old story of cutting jobs and
cutting expenses at the expense of US workers by moving jobs overseas."
Today, Goodman said the unions had been led to believe there would only be about
2500 job cuts and members were upset when an additional 1000 jobs
were announced.
Goodman said DuPont has not specified where the cuts will come
"but we think a majority will be from the US."